One stop resource: Mographnews.com

The service that ran mographnews.com, SlinkSet, has shut down. It was overrun with spam anyway, so not much of a loss, unfortunately.

Things have been really quiet around here at themographblog, and I apologize for that! To make up for the

I delivered 4 projects last week, so hopefully I will free up some time to get some new stuff up here on The Mograph Blog!

Cheers

Chris

Linking Particles to a Null with Particular

Back from the dead!  Thanks for stopping by, here’s a new one for you that I think you’ll find very valuable if it’s not already in your workflow.   I use this literally everytime I’m moving particles on a path, I find the technique much better than emitting particles from a light.

Linking your particle simulation directly to a null also gives you the ability to link multiple simulations to the same null and gives you the flexibility to really create some killer simulations.

Enjoy!!

Downloads:

blue_line.ffx

Cinema4D Layer Browser Trick

First thing is first, sorry for going so long without a post. Life has been pretty crazy lately (in a good way) and I’ve neglected some important things and people unfortunately, one of them being TMB. Not to worry, here’s a tip that hopefully will excite you as much as it did me.

The Layer Browser (LB) in Cinema4D is a killer tool, and is super helpful for scene management. Within the LB you can do cool stuff like turn off hypernurbs, exclude your layer from the Object Manager, and nest layers together in a hierarchy. But one thing that can be a pain is adding a huge nest of objects from the Object Manager to a layer. (Picture to the right is a faux unwieldy Object Manager, I realize that it’s not the LB. Keep reading)

Shame the Old way

The old way I used to accomplish this was to select the parent object, right-click->Select Children, then right-click again and Add to Layer. Sure that seems pretty easy, but it’s too many unnecessary steps - Maxon has given us a great little trick to circumvent that process.

Cheer the New way

All you have to do is hold down the Control key (NOT the Command key on a Mac, but the CONTROL key) and drag your desired layer on to the top Parent object…. BOOM! Cinema automatically applies your layer to every child in your hierarchy. Sweet.

Little work flow enhancements like this add up. Imagine how many menus and right clicks and window openings you do throughout the average work day. It’s a lot. If you can shave even 2 or 3 seconds of little things like this, it may be the difference between getting your render to the client in time or making up an excuse so your producer doesn’t eat your brains.

Stay keyframey San Diego.

New Icons for Net Render!

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said, “God is in the details” (although some in the design crowd incorrectly attribute it to Hillman Curtis). Details matter, especially in software design. Good little things like Adobe changing the “image sequence” checkbox default to “checked” when importing image sequences, go a long way. Then there are other little little things that drive me crazy. For example: Maxon not giving NET Render Client and NET Render Server their own icons. And what do we do when something doesn’t exist? We create it. So here you go, new icons for NET Render Client and NET Render Server, free as can be.

Download Icons

Included in the zip file are my original PSD files (created in CS3), 48×48 png, 32×32 png, 16×16 png (yuck) and ICNS files for Mac users. You are free to change, re-distribute, whatever you want - except sell (duh) or pass off the originals as your own creation (wickety-wack).

Installation

If you are on OS X, read this article on installing new icons. The .icns file you want to replace is c4dapp.icns. If you want to try the ol’ Get Info->Paste trick, you can try that, but it’s infamous for not actually changing your icon permanently. On Windows, read up on your options over here at the iconaholic.com help section. Since I included the .PSDs, you have the ability to create whatever you may need.

Notices

1. Before you go replacing anything, backup your old files. It’s not my fault if you mess something up.
2. The C4D Logos were obtained from the Maxon site HERE.
3. The little character in the header image on this post was grabbed from HERE, I did not create the character, I don’t know who did, but good job.
4. Just like with the Plugin Cafe RSS Feeds, I have no affiliation with Maxon. I just use their software.

Cinema 4D Hotkey o’the Day

In Cinema 4D, you can nudge forward and back in your timeline using the ‘G’ and ‘F’ keys, respectively. This is the equivalent of using ‘Page-Up’ and ‘Page-Down’ in After Effects.

GET DEM KEYFRAMES!

Coming Soon - cut a new video last night covering using nested cameras with expressions in After Effects, should be able to post it up by tomorrow morning so stay tuned.

RSS Feeds for Plugin Cafe

The other day I was poking around in the Plugin Cafe forums and I saw somebody request RSS feeds for the forums. Later the same day, I asked a question regarding a little plugin I’m writing to help improve the 3D pipeline over at one of my favorite studios. (Why would I do such a thing? Oh yeah, it’s all part of being versatile)
Anyway, after receiving a very thorough response from the community over there (including Matthias from Maxon), I decided to go ahead and fulfill the RSS Request, as there had yet to be a response on the issue (I’m sure Maxon has their little noses to the grindstone improving openGL support on the mac, etc…)

So without further ado, you can get your Plugin Cafe RSS feeds at:

http://chriskelley.tv/plugincafe/

Keep reading to find out more about how I create the feeds.
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